The present invention is related to firearms, and particularly to apparatus for cleaning a bore of a firearm, either a cannon with a bore diameter of as much as 205 millimeters or a firearm with a smaller bore, including a shotgun or a rifle with a bore as small as .22 caliber.
Discharging firearms results in residue from the combustion of propellant and residue from wadding and the parts of a projectile that come into frictional contact with the interior surfaces of a gun tube. Cleaning a gun bore is periodically necessary to permit inspection, so that small cracks might be discovered before they can become dangerously enlarged. Cleaning is also necessary to avoid corrosion resulting from chemical products of combustion of a propellant, and to remove particulate matter left behind from friction of a projectile within the gun tube, particularly since some projectiles may leave behind particles of materials which might be dangerous or carcinogenic to personnel.
Currently the military is using a device similar in shape to a plumber's plunger to clean bores of guns. The same device in different sizes is used for several gun calibers, but this device does a poor job of cleaning the barrels of artillery guns. It requires many passes and up to six hours to clean a cannon barrel using this device.
In current cleaning methodologies, the cleaning process starts by inserting the cleaning device into the muzzle of the barrel and forcing the dislodged material towards the breech of the barrel. This in turn dictates that the residue must be blown out of the bore to complete the cleaning operation and in some cases such as cleaning a tank gun bore, residue thus can become airborne in a quite confined space. The residue then must be removed from that confined space, subjecting the armorer/technician to materials such as lead, carbon and in some cases depleted uranium particulates. Many such substances included in gun bore residues are known to have adverse affects on the human body.